Legend of the Sword Reviews

This old adventure is a sort of a hidden gem. I remember it fondly in the nineties, I played it at a friend's place who had an Atari ST (I had Amiga at the time), the writing was very evocative, the illustrations modest, but contributing to the immersion, and the text parser - although not as impressive as the Infocom games - had a sensible answer to almost any idea, even the crazier ones. That said, the solution to problems often had very little logical sense. Attacking with a knife might succeed where attacking with a sword fails (the game says you tripped, but why exactly?) There is also a lot of sudden deaths, and there is a time limit in the form of "stamina", which although does create a bit artificial sense of urgency, does not mix well with exploration and experimentation. That said, the game is still very much recommended. If you are into written fantasy novels and can word with text, you may find out that the text adventures provide experience modern games seldom offer. After all, they don't make them this way anymore...

In what was a most unusual delve into what is arguably one of the oldest titles that is currently on offer over on Steam here, Legend of the Sword is an 1988 text adventure game released by Rainbird Software way back when Text Adventure games were starting to explore the early graphical side of things, something that the then-legendary studio Sierra would master their crafts with over the years spanning after this old title. Considering just how old this DOS title is, it goes without saying that it's gaming mechanics are quite dated by today's standards and, as a result, is not exactly playable to the same expectations from your average gamer as a result, even those who are a fan of these sorts of retro adventure gaming from way back. Now, despite what my overall review suggests, I am going to express something that might come as a surprise to those who are reading this review right here: I actually enjoyed some parts of this game as far as the overall storytelling goes and how it does do a decent job at depicting the graphics of both the world and it's characters alongside any actions taken by the player alongside generally having some fun banter in certain moments. However, despite part of me wishing to recommend this to people, I overall feel that this is a game that makes you work hard before you can even begin to try enjoying it for what little it has in today's world, seeing as there are other DOS games that have held up surprisingly well and are, to some extent, playable in 2023 albeit patience is required for some of the more outdated and exhausting gameplay mechanics that, back then, were just part of the growing medium and generally accepted as it were. I'll go in-depth with why Legend of the Sword here largely isn't suitable for playing (or replaying, if you were one of the VERY few on Steam to have experienced this title first-hand from the likes of the old Atari ST and Amiga PCs among others!) as, despite having partially enjoyed my time with the game, it does have some serious issues that largely make it unappealing for playing in today's gaming scene. For starters, genuinely trying to make progress in Legend of the Sword is largely a trial by error process alongside figuring out where to look, what to look and, even in some bizarre cases, how to go about looking for said things as what you type into the game for it to process as an action can be quite finicky, as was traditionally the case in many old text adventure games, and whilst this game does take a leap forward in that it not only gives you many common actions (attacking, giving items, eating/drinking, examining etc) for the many items and characters you'll be coming across alongside the world itself, there are also some cases where even the in-game vocabulary doesn't advise you best on what exact word you have to use to get the game to progress! (Granted, they do have a 'Help' function that will work occasionally, sometimes giving you guidance on what to look at and other times what items you should be having on you to solve the situation, but often it'll just tell you to "Work it out yourself!" as it were) Another large problem is the classic tale of not picking up a critical item and finding out potentially WAY later down the road that said seemingly ordinary item was, in fact, important for progressing at a certain part of the story and requiring a good ways back or, in case of not keeping track of multiple saves, requiring you to do a full restart and going ALL the way to the very beginning and having to learn from error the hard way! What makes this problem all the more worse is the game's weight limit, in that your character can only carry so much by himself before he simply can not carry any more items. Whilst the severe lack of inventory capacity is somewhat mitigated by storing extra items into your bagpack and also giving other items to your companions, (I've noted that both Pagan and Cornilius will generally accept anything whilst Belar and Borgalius are more picky with what you give them, meanwhile Daville will simply NOT take anything from you whatsoever!) it is still quite damning that you run the risk of essentially all progress being halted and being forced to backtrack or even just outright begin the game anew, which is especially frustrating in today's gaming scene where games with a far better sense of progression and smoother gameplay process goes! Perhaps it's just me, where I've learned to develop a great deal of patience with some games over the years and, as a result, can somewhat look past this issue personally, however it would be unreasonable to ask the same of others and, as a result, Legend of the Sword is a game that I can not, unfortunately, recommend for playing. Maybe I'll be the one to cover the game in it's entirety someday, deaths and all, but we shall see. TLDR Version: • A trip back to older retro gaming in the DOS era with a nicely-crafted early graphics text adventure game brought to life in the modern video gaming era (+) • Faithfully ported from the Atari ST and Amiga where the gameplay is not compromised with technical hiccups or issues making it compatible for modern PCs (+) • Surprisingly well-built world that takes full advantage of the new graphics that were, for the time in 1988, genuinely impressive alongside having a host of fun characters, both good and evil! (+) • Gameplay is severely outdated as later graphical adventure games by iconic studio Sierra would make this form of gaming far more accessible and less frustrating for gamers (-) • No clear direction on where to go past a certain point as, despite taking my time without a guide for the first 20 or so hours, one could only go so far without some form of guidance (-) • Legend of the Sword falls into the gameplay design trap of punishing you for an action you did/did not take far later into the game where it requires said item or action done, requiring a full restart in some cases (-) • Frustrations can often come from trying to get the right word used so that the game can recognize what it is you are trying to convey in your command, with limited help from the game's set commands in the sub-menu (-) • Strictly a game that can only be remotely enjoyed for those deep into archaic and dated games from the distant past that are looking to go through this game for either nostalgia or historical purposes, with little appeal for everyone else (-)